For health, smarts and resilience, drink your beer

Anybody interested in buying more food from local farmers and learning how to cook and preserve it at home knows that taking control of what goes in your mouth is a powerful way to get healthier.

But if you’re trying to eat more organic kale, more free-range eggs and more pastured beef, you may also be trying to cut back on booze to stiffen up that beer belly or shrink those love handles.

Well, if you don’t think about drinking more IPA as the high road to a healthy body and even a sharper mind, then we’ve got news for you. Beer contains nearly all the minerals that humans need to survive. Beer may help prevent kidney stones and heart disease. And beer strengthens your bones.

And, while it may be hard to believe that getting a buzz on can make you smarter, one study even showed that women who drank moderately had better cognitive function than teetotalers.

You may already know that beer led to the birth of agriculture and possibly, civilization itself, so you know this brew is strong enough to help build resilience in your community. Support your local microbrewery and help ensure that you’ll have beer in a more localized future — while shrinking your carbon footprint today.

And to reduce your environmental impact even more, while making your household more resilient, why not try brewing your own?